President Donald Trump is moving toward a reset on his signature issue after a pair of fatal shootings involving federal immigration officials in Minneapolis.
The question is whether Trump can successfully de-escalate without abandoning his commitment to deport illegal immigrants in the face of protests against those efforts.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become a top target of Trump’s progressive political opponents and others who disagree with his immigration agenda.
Democrats are poised to shut down part of the federal government over ICE and homeland security funding.
What may start with the reshuffling of personnel within the Trump administration could lead to a shift in the optics and messaging on immigration — or perhaps even a change in underlying policy.
For the last decade, immigration has defined Trump’s political career. He used the issue to distinguish himself from Republican primary opponents, including Jeb Bush, whose brother advocated amnesty for most illegal immigrants as president, and Marco Rubio, who, as a senator from Florida, was part of the “Gang of Eight” behind the last major bipartisan amnesty push in 2013.
Rubio recalibrated and is now Trump’s secretary of state. Bush is out of electoral politics, and his family, which included two Republican presidents, has lost influence within the GOP.
Trump’s most prominent 2016 campaign promise was his pledge to build a wall along the southern border at Mexico’s expense. It became a catchphrase at his rallies. “You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe, thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts,” Trump told the New York Times editorial board.
Immigration was once again among the reasons Trump returned to the White House. Former President Joe Biden lost control of the border and allowed record levels of illegal immigration during his term, but Trump vowed to secure it again.
During the 2024 campaign, the border crisis led to a spike in public support for mass deportations. Fifty-five percent of respondents told Gallup that they wanted a reduction in immigration, the most since 2001.
Exit polls found that 53% trusted Trump most on immigration compared to 44% who chose former Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democrats’ nominee.
Even then, there were signs of ambivalence. The same exit poll showed 56% thought most illegal immigrants should be “offered a chance at legal status” compared to 40% who said “deported.” But Trump carried 87% of pro-deportation voters.
Under Trump, illegal border crossings have slowed to a trickle. It’s been one of the biggest accomplishments of his second term. But that progress has diminished the urgency of immigration enforcement for some voters. Gallup found that concern about the issue had diminished by last June.
Some voters who want a strong border are nevertheless uneasy with the optics of deporting illegal immigrants within the interior of the country, especially if they have not committed violent crimes.
Trump has had to adjust on immigration before. During his first term, there was a strong public backlash against family separations that were popularly described as resulting in “kids in cages.” Trump also faced two government shutdowns over illegal immigrants. He won on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, when red-state Democratic senators seeking reelection in 2018 quickly backed down. But Democrats were able to use a shutdown, then the longest in history, to block funding for the border wall.
Eight years later, Trump and Republicans are facing another round of difficult midterm elections. Trump would like to improve his administration’s image on the subject without demoralizing his base by breaking his deportation campaign promise. Some of his strongest supporters would prefer to see Trump invoke the Insurrection Act against Minnesota and the anti-ICE protesters.
“At Cygnal, we recently surveyed voters on whether the Trump administration’s deportation efforts have gone too far, are about right, or haven’t gone far enough. The results: 50% said too far, 48% said about right or not far enough,” Republican pollster Brent Buchanan wrote in his Monday memo. “That’s a statistical tie. A country split down the middle.”
HOMELAND INSECURITY: MELTDOWN IN MINNESOTA
The recent New York Times-Siena poll found that 50% strongly or somewhat supported the deportations, while 47% strongly or somewhat opposed them. This was a survey that put Trump’s job approval rating at 40% and gave Democrats a 5-point lead in the generic congressional ballot.
What Trump does next will matter greatly.